An assistant managing editor at the New York Times "seems to think its customers aren't all that bright" (Forbes).
Listen to this, from the Forbes blog:
During a panel discussion at the Digital Hollywood New York conference, Gerald Marzorati, the Times’s assistant managing editor for new media and strategic initiatives, explained why the paper's print business is still robust. "We have north of 800,000 subscribers paying north of $700 a year for home delivery," Marzorati said. "Of course, they don't seem to know that."
As evidence that Times subscribers don't realize how much a subscription costs, he pointed to what happened when the paper raised its home-delivery price by 5 percent during the recession: Only 0.01 percent of subscribers canceled. "I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that they're literally not understanding what they're paying," he said. "That's the beauty of the credit card."
...Stealthily hiking rates on the assumption that customers are too dim to catch on and/or too lazy to do anything about it is the kind of thing that gives banks, credit card companies and cell phone providers such a bad reputation. When I pointed this out after the panel to Marzorati, he was quick to dial back his condescension. All he meant to say, he explained, is that customer retention is always better in an opt-out situation.
Nick has been pointing out the problems with this kind of scammy thinking for a while now, but it's a bit of a surprise to hear it from the New York Times. More evidence that you've got to keep a leash on your social marketers -- and that includes anyone who speaks for you in public.
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Paul — Nov 29, 2010
Four Design Links is a review of the design- and ethics-related stories we've been reading online this week.
1. Display Myths Shattered
Everything you thought you knew about monitor specs and controls is wrong. Seriously.
2. Watch out for Cramming
This week, I learned about Cramming, which sounds a lot like the Opt-out schemes we've covered in the past. The scam depends on people not paying attention to false charges hidden in their phone bill. Except with cramming, you don't even have agree to anything! Read on...
3. The Lie of the Game Preview
Ars makes a valid point: When have you ever read a negative preview for a game? Never. Everything developers show journalists is tightly controlled. Of course it looks good!
4. Web Design Trends: 2010
Smashing Magazine published its annual list of the year's trends in web design. It's worth a look to see what's new (and what's tired).
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Nick — May 20, 2010
Today's Four Links are of the educational variety. Follow a couple and learn something new!
1. Packaging Design at Its Worst
Treehugger has a gallery of packaging designs that are wasteful and, in one case, downright dangerous.
2. What Street Vendors Can Teach Businesses About Twitter
One of the better articles I've read on making effective use of Twitter. I appreciate the fact that the authors use real tweets as examples instead of simply making broad, unsupported generalizations.
3. Want more sign-ups? Don't lead with "Free" offers
In user testing, 37signals found that a call-to-action button with the copy "See Plans and Pricing" resulted in a 200% increase in sign-ups over variations on "Sign-up for a Free Trial".
It seems that people are weary of "free" things online as they are often a gateway to unwanted subscriptions and opt-out schemes.
4. How to Monetize a Free Service
Okay, that title's a bit misleading.
But we could learn something from the actions of Pandora CEO Tim Founder on how to make the move from free to freemium. Founder broke the news to his customers in a sensitive and well-reasoned letter that's worth reading.
Make a great service and treat your customers like intelligent people. That's something we can all subscribe to.
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Nick — Jul 23, 2009
Can unethical tactics become blueprints for ethical success? DLB puts on its lab coat and dissects opt-out schemes to find out.
On Tuesday, I wrote about “opt-out” or “negative option” practices --okay, scams-- wherein customers unwittingly agree to subscription services which they are charged for in deliberately obfuscated ways. To get out of the arrangement, the customer has to explicitly state they do not want to be charged (this is easier said than done); hence, the opt-out moniker.
As white-hat designers, what can we learn from this unethical behavior?
Last time, we identified the common elements of an opt-out scam. Let’s see if doing the opposite can’t turn this around—and then some.
Read More...
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Nick — Nov 6, 2008
With today’s post, we are officially inaugurating a taxonomy of unethical designs. Our hope is that by collecting and categorizing all the questionable practices out there, we can uncover the thinking patterns that underlie unethical decisions and come up with alternatives.
If you’ve got a TV, you’ve probably seen those free credit report commercials in high rotation. Well, as it turns out, the report isn’t really free at all. To get it, you have to sign up for a trial membership in a credit monitoring service. Once that trial expires, you’ll be billed monthly until you cancel. The thing is, you probably didn’t know you were signing up for the membership or when the trial period took place. You may not even spot the charge on your credit card for some time. When you try to cancel, you find that you’re obligated to a one year membership.
And that, folks, is where "free" becomes unethical.
Read More...
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Nick — Nov 4, 2008
